


Brothers on a Hotel Bed

by theskywasblue



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Abandonment, Adoption, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-09
Updated: 2010-07-09
Packaged: 2017-10-10 11:40:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/99335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theskywasblue/pseuds/theskywasblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All our lives we search for someone who makes us complete. We dance to the song of heartbreak and hope, wondering if somewhere, somehow there is someone searching for us</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brothers on a Hotel Bed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jinxaire](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=jinxaire).



> Originally written for the [yuletide_smut](http://community.livejournal.com/yuletide_smut/) giftfic exchange 2009.

The archives building was not really what Donovan had expected when he looked it up in the city directory - Victorian architecture, all grey stone and intricate detail, roof domed in a way that reminded him visually of the Mount Temple in the Middle East with its great gold dome, except that this dome was all glass, letting constant natural light into the vast lobby. There were people coming and going in every direction -- busy, important-looking people in suits. Donovan felt out of place in his dingy shirt-sleeves and paint-spattered jeans, certain that the security man he had passed at the door was going to come up behind him any minute and ask him to leave.

He had imagined the building as being nearly empty, dark, nothing but rows upon rows of shelves containing masses of documents, smelling of ancient paper and fading ink.

For a long time he just stood in the lobby, in the center of an intricate tile mosaic depicting something he couldn't see the scope of -- though he was sure it involved mountains or something -- and looked up at the sky through the dome. Everything seemed more overwhelming than when he had dreamed up this plan in the first place.

Finally, he adjusted his backpack on his shoulder and walked up to the reception desk. There was a girl behind it, pretty, with dark curls and pink nail polish but no other serious makeup Donovan could see, except maybe lip gloss. She was reading a University-level biology textbook, chewing on her glossy lower lip as her eyes scanned back and forth over the page.

"Excuse me." She glanced up, looking surprised by the sound of Donovan's voice. "I'm...uh looking for the archives."

She smiled, patient but a little amused. "You're standing in them. What sort of things were you looking for?"

Donovan felt colour rise in his cheeks and he ran his fingers through his dark hair, pushing it off his forehead. "Sorry about that. I guess...adoption records."

"You'll want to go up the stairs there, then down the hall to room 208. It's all public access, but you can't take any materials out of the building. The archivist in charge will help you if you need anything." Her smile softened in a way that Donovan was too used to seeing already, "Good luck."

"Thanks," Dononvan nodded, and hurried to climb the wide stone staircase that led up to the second floor, following the brass signs on the walls deep into the rear of the building, to an area he had more expected - cool, dark and almost deserted.

There was a small desk sitting outside room 208, but it was un-manned. So much for getting help from the archivist, but at least the double doors were unlocked, so Donovan let himself in. The room beyond was bigger than he had expected, dimly lit, full of rows upon rows of wooden shelves stacked thick with boxes and binders and yellowed sheets of paper held together with clips, more information than Donovan could possibly have imagined all crammed together in a single space. It didn't look like there was any real organization to it at all, but there had to be.

Feeling overwhelmed and suddenly disheartened, Donovan slumped back against the door and closed his eyes. When he had come looking for adoption records he hadn't figured he would have to wade through an entire century's worth to find the one he was looking for.

Not for the first time, Donovan thought the best idea would be to not bother with a search. What were the chances his brother would want to see him anyway? Hell, what were the chances that his brother even remembered him? Finally, he pushed those thoughts into the back of his mind, falling back on himself; he only wanted to know his little brother was alive, to know that he had had a good life, nothing more than that.

Along the left side of the room there was a row of small cubicles, each with a desk lamp on top, for closer examination of documents. Not a single one was occupied, so Donovan picked the nearest one, set his bag down and, taking a deep breath to clear his head, started walking through the stacks. Gradually, his mind got a grasp on the situation. It was all organized not alphabetically, but by month and year, each identified by sliding plates on the shelves. At least that gave him a starting point, he could find February 1994 and then work his way up. It would be easy.

Right...

He wondered how anyone could find anything in this mess. Maybe there was a secret system, or maybe he needed a lucky rabbit's foot. He headed deeper into the room, counting off the years in his head, turned a corner and saw someone tugging an over-stuffed binder down off a high shelf.

Donovan cleared his throat and the young man jumped, the binder slipping from him hand and hitting the floor with a jarring thump. When he spun in Donovan's direction it became instantly obvious that he wasn't the archivist - he was too young for a start, and wore a sweat shirt with the logo of the local university on the front.

"Sorry."

"Ah..." the young man adjusted his glasses with one finger and let out a quick sigh, "no, that's alright. I just thought I was alone, that's all."

"So did I." Donovan stepped forward and picked up the binder. It weighed about a solid ton. When he handed it over he realized it had fallen from a shelf labelled _07/1994_. "Say - you wouldn't happen to know where I could find February, would you?"

"Back that way," the young man motioned, turning his attention back to the shelf.

"Thanks," Donovan nodded.

***

The archives closed to the public at six pm. By that time, Donovan had gone through just three months worth of adoption records, and the whole task of finding his younger brother seemed entirely beyond him. Eyes gritty with dust and exhaustion, he walked down the darkening street - it was the first week of November and the daylight was shrinking rapidly - to the bus stop, already half of a mind not to come back the next day. He dropped himself onto the wooden bench and sighed.

"I take it you didn't find what you were looking for."

The young man from the archives was sitting next to him. Donovan hadn't even noticed the bench was occupied. In the glow of the street lamps the young man's eyes were the strangest jewel-bright shade of green that Donovan had ever seen.

"Uh...no. Not yet. You?"

The young man shook his head. "No."

"How long have you been looking?"

"It would be...about ten weeks now."

"Jesus."

"Hope springs eternal," they young man laughed. There was a caustic edge to it, like acid on the edge of the young man's tongue.

The number ten cross-town pulled up; Donovan stood, but the young man remained sitting.

"Well..." Donovan ventured, "Good luck."

The young man nodded, "Same to you."

***

The young man was at the archives every day that week, the same as Donovan; though he sometimes didn't arrive until the middle of the afternoon, he always came. He had Donovan traded a few words here and there, but something about the single-minded determination with which he poured over the shelves didn't invite much conversation.

It was nice anyway, to know someone else was alive in that room with him. Sometimes as he scanned page after page of names and birthdates, scribbling down possible matches to cross-reference later, Donovan felt like he was in the middle of reading an enormous ghost story. Each name pained him, like pins being stuck in under his skin, each name was the imperfect distillation of a human being and something in Donovan wanted to help each and every one them.

He wondered if the young man felt the same way, but he felt stupid asking.

***

On Saturday morning the cross-town bus dropped Donovan off a full twenty minutes before the archives opened to the public. As he walked past the steps in front of the building on his way to the small diner at the end of the block, breath puffing out silver clouds in the cool morning air, he noticed the young man was sitting at the bottom, what looked like a textbook open in his lap, gloved hands pulling the pages apart so he could read.

"Hey," Donovan called, and the young man looked up, his wild green eyes wary as Donovan closed the distance between them. "Aren't you cold?"

The young man shook his head, "No. Actually I'm quite alright."

"Are you sure you don't want a cup of coffee - it's a while before they open up." The suspicious glint in the young man's eyes didn't fade, so Donovan offered him a hand. "I'm Donovan Sheppard."

For a moment the young man looked at Donovan's un-gloved, calloused hand like it was a dead animal on the end of his wrist; then, reluctantly, he shook it. "Hunter Channing."

Donovan grinned, "Now that we're friends, would you like that coffee?"

Hunter chewed the inside of his lip for a moment and then finally snapped his book closed. "Alright. Since something tells me that you're not going to let me say no, anyhow."

The diner was crowded inside, over-warm and smelling of grease and burned coffee. Donovan and Hunter had a booth by the window looking out over the street, and were looked after by a slim little waitress with pink-dyed hair and a gold stud in her lower lip. The coffee was just barely palatable when combined with about four packets of sugar and enough cream to make it a soft caramel colour. Hunter sat and looked out the window, his mug held in both hands, watching the traffic go by, his textbook next to his elbow. Donovan tipped his head until he could read the title upside-down.

"_Between Vengeance And Forgiveness: Facing History After Genocide And Mass Violence_ \- heavy stuff. What are you studying?"

"Law," Hunter answered, sounding vaguely distracted.

"Is that why you're looking at adoption records, too?"

"No," Hunter's voice picked up that caustic edge again, "that's personal."

"That's fine. Me, I'm looking for my brother. My half-brother actually. He'd probably be about your age."

"I don't know him."

"I didn't say you did." Donovan bit back a sigh and sipped his coffee. It was a little like talking to a wall. Maybe trying to be Hunter's friend was a mistake; it was probably better to leave people alone to their own pain. If you shared it then it only got bigger.

"My sister..." Hunter kept his green gaze down, fingers playing along the cover of his textbook as if searching for something to hold on to. "I didn't know she existed until I looked up my own birth records to obtain some travel papers...it was so strange - I never thought, even in my wildest dreams I would have a twin sister. I can't even remember her. I only know her name from a birth certificate. Did you ever know your brother, Donovan?"

"Uh..." Donovan ran a hand through his hair, feeling awkward and intrusive, wishing he hadn't asked at all. "Yeah. We didn't live together, but I saw him. One weekend a month when I came here to visit my old man."

"How did he end up alone?"

"It's..." Donovan sighed, "A long story really. The simple version is that our dad and his mom died in a car wreck when he was three. I was always told that my brother had ended up with one of his mother's relatives. I only found out last month that she didn't have any..."

Somehow, Hunter didn't look all that surprised. Something in his expression told Donovan that he had almost expected such cruelty. Donovan, on the other hand, was torn up inside by it. All he could think about was the fifteen years that his little brother had been without anyone to help him; if he had been allowed, Donovan would have at least tried to change that.

Of course, in his rare logical moments, Donovan thought that, with all the problems his own mother had had, with all the chaos that her assortment of illnesses both mental and physical had brought into his life, maybe it was better his brother hadn't been exposed to that.

"I let it eat at me a while," Donovan continued, "thinking 'he's eighteen now, what the hell can I do for him anymore?' but eventually I had to come and look for him."

"What's his name?"

"Why?" Donovan asked without thinking.

A bitter smile turned up the corner of Hunter's lips, "Maybe I _do_ know him."

"It's Gavin. And your sister?"

"Kaitlin." Hunter turned his eyes back towards the window.

Donovan said the only thing he could think of that made any sense.

"I hope you find her."

***

It wasn't like they became friends, miraculously, after that; but somehow, as another two weeks slipped by, they found that it was easier to endure poring over the records hour by hour if they could go down to the diner afterwards and talk about what they had found. For Donovan at least, it helped things come together in his head, helped him think of other places to search, other clues to look for. He hoped that it did the same thing for Hunter, and wasn't just a distraction. Then again, Hunter didn't seem like the sort of person who would put up with a lot of distraction. If Donovan had been getting in the way at all, he got the sense that Hunter would have just ignored him, or altered his schedule so that they didn't share time at the archives.

Sometimes they didn't talk about their missing siblings at all - sometimes they talked like they were normal people living normal lives, and Donovan was pretty sure that both of them needed that.

***

"Sometimes all I can think about is how terribly bizarre it is." Hunter stretched out across Donovan's hotel bed, watching the lights from the cars passing on the street below reflecting off the ceiling. He was probably a little drunk - Donovan certainly was - but the bar had been a nice change, something to take their minds of all the papers, all the names.

"Honestly - don't you think it's strange, doesn't it bother you?"

"Does what bother me?"

Hunter took a deep breath and let it out, bringing one hand up to cover his face. "Sometimes...I stand on a crowded street, and I look at all the women passing by and think...that any one of them could be her. She could walk right by me, brush against my shoulder and I would never, ever know."

"Yeah," Donovan nodded slowly, "yeah I guess that might happen. Could happen. The same thing could happen with Gavin and me."

"I could meet her," Hunter continued, "absolutely without knowing, we could fall in love even, and I might never guess she was my sister." He sat up, looking back at Donovan who lay with his legs hanging off the bed and one arm tucked behind his neck. There was a strange smile on Hunter's face - almost playful, but also a little dangerous. "Then again, I might meet her and fall in love with her and know full well we have a blood relationship. That can happen, you know; it's been documented."

"Yeah?"

Hunter nodded, "Though to tell the truth, there is a part of me that would welcome that sort of confusion."

Donovan cleared his throat, blinked slowly. The room was shifting just slightly. "Whaddya mean?"

"Do you remember how it was I first came across my sister's birth records?"

Donovan wracked his inebriated brain, propped himself up on his elbows slightly in the hopes that getting some of the blood out of his head would help, "Travel...right?"

Hunter smiled indulgently, like a teacher humouring a particularly slow student. "I'm afraid I wasn't entirely honest. You see...about six months ago, I was involved in a fight."

"Fight?" Donovan didn't believe that the scrawny, bespectacled kid could throw a punch, let alone actually _fight_.

"I went looking for one, is the honest truth. Though I happened to lose the one I found quite spectacularly. Charges were brought against my assailants and it went to court. The trouble is...I was not always a good person. Truthfully, the reason I myself was never adopted is that I was a troubled child. I even stabbed another boy with a pencil...once."

Their eyes locked, and between them, they bartered belief and disbelief, until Donovan's blue eyes were the first to look away. He believed it, hell, he could even picture it - Hunter with that totally blank, heartless look on his face that he sometimes got when really frustrated, his green eyes looking out from beneath the veil of his dark bangs, glittering as hard and sharp as flint.

"Fuck."

Hunter turned, putting his hand on the bed next to Donovan's hip, shifting the weight of his body. Donovan's stomach did a flip that he didn't expect, and he swallowed down a sudden lump in his throat.

"The defence attorney discovered this, of course; and all that evidence was in turn presented - by rule of law - to the prosecution. Of course the juvenile records were sealed, but nevertheless, the district attorney asked me if my sister could vouch for my character," Hunter's laugh was bitter, pained, "I had no idea she existed until that moment. None. From then on, I couldn't bring myself to care about the trial. All I could think of was finding her. But before I began my search I enrolled in school - perhaps law was a somewhat ironic choice, but I wanted to transform myself into a man that my sister might want to meet. A man...that she might be able to love."

"You know..." Donovan's voice was barely a whisper. Hunter's pain seemed to have taken up all of the air in the room. "My mom...she was sick. I had to take care of her my whole life. I loved her...but it was just me and her in this little house, like a prison."

Hunter hummed softly. He was all the way twisted around now, half-kneeling on the bed, and he brought two fingers against the hollow of Donovan's throat, stroking the tender skin there. It felt good. Donovan had to force himself to continue without getting distracted by that touch.

"I used to imagine...that I might run away and find Gavin and whatever family he was with - his aunt or cousin or grandmother or whoever. They wouldn't be my family, but..."

"You were lonely," Hunter finished.

Donovan licked his lips, nodded, "Yeah."

It had been a long time since Donovan had kissed anyone. He had forgotten how strange the process was - lips and tongue and a graze of teeth - slippery and warm, like trying to swallow something alive. Hunter leaned over him, his hand pressing against Donovan's chest with such force that for a moment Donovan thought his ribs would break; but the terror he felt was only breathlessness. They broke apart and Hunter put his forehead against Donovan's ribs, as if hiding his face.

"This isn't really...going to fix anything, I realize that."

"Yeah well..." Donovan pushed his fingers through Hunter's hair, let them settle against the base of his skull, tangled in the thick, soft strands, "I don't think it'll hurt anything either, do you?"

Hunter's affirmation came in the form of a deep, hungry kiss, fierce enough to leave Donovan's lips throbbing, followed by a bite to his lower lip that almost drew blood.

"Easy," Donovan managed, breathless. He pushed his hands under Hunter's sweater, across his stomach, finding a weird incongruity in the otherwise smooth, soft skin, something raised against Hunter's flesh, almost rubbery but still warm. It wasn't until they had managed to shift around and get their clothes off - Donovan kneeling between Hunter's legs - that he realized the thing on Hunter's stomach was a scar, like nothing else he had ever seen, cutting right across the smooth plane of Hunter's stomach; a knife wound, Donovan thought. The word _evisceration_ slithered through his brain like a great, black snake, making his guts twist in sympathy.

"God...you really are a fighter, aren't you?"

Hunter moved, and for a moment Donovan thought he was trying to get up and leave, but instead he turned over onto his stomach, offering the smooth, flawless plane of his back in something like a compromise, folding his arms underneath the pillows with his head turned to the side. There was a flush along his cheekbones and his eyes glittered greener than anything natural.

Donovan wouldn't have said anything, wouldn't have touched the scar or even looked at it if Hunter had asked him not too, but obviously he was supposed to pretend that it didn't exist at all. He ran the flat of his palm down Hunter's back, from the base of his neck to the curve of his ass, felt him shudder and let out a long sigh. His eyes slid closed as Donovan stroked again, and he thought that was about as much trust as one human being could give another - closed eyes and a naked back.

He kissed down Hunter's spine, across the rise of his shoulder blades, his lips brushing along delicate freckles and subtle blemishes. Hunter shivered, his skin breaking out in goose bumps, and Donovan felt a little thrill run through him. It had been a while since he'd drawn that kind of reaction out of someone, a long time since he'd had the chance to press skin against skin and feel soft, raw pleasure. When he reached the small of Hunter's back, he nuzzled the soft skin there, dusted with dark, downy hairs, breathed in the scent and then pressed wet lips against it before flicking his tongue against the tiny dent at the very top of Hunter's ass. That earned Donovan a soft, genuine groan, and a little squirm against the sheets. When he let his tongue dip into the space between Hunter's cheeks, the groan became a vibrato whimper and Hunter's fingers dug into the pillow.

"Oooh..." Hunter swallowed so hard that Donovan heard something in his throat click. His eyes - those brilliantly, inhumanly green eyes - fluttered open, unfocused. "You don't..."

"It's fine," Donovan promised, "just let me."

Hunter laughed, a little unsteadily, like his mind might be unravelling. Maybe he was more drunk than Donovan thought. "I don't think I could stop you if I wanted to."

"Well - good."

Donovan worked one hand between Hunter's stomach and the mattress, palm against that twisted, jagged strip of scar tissue, guiding him up to his knees. Hunter stretched up on his elbows, forehead cradled in his hands, his breathing finally growing just a little ragged as Donovan's fingers spread his cheeks apart. When Donovan slid his tongue out and ran it over the delicate pink ring of Hunter's entrance, Hunter shuddered head to toe and bowed his back, like a cat in the beginnings of a stretch. That seemed like about as much permission as he would ever get. Donovan didn't know particularly why he wanted to do this now, since it wasn't usually the first brand of foreplay that sprung to his mind, but he knew he wanted this.

He licked over the tight ring of muscle again and again, in slow, hard strokes until it lost its resistance and opened to the pressure of his tongue. Hunter whimpered, whispering something that sounded like _"Oh my God..."_ and let his knees move farther apart. Donovan drew back for a moment, dragged his teeth over the tender flesh of Hunter's ass.

"No good?"

"Ah..." Hunter tipped his head, looking at Donovan from underneath his arm, "I definitely didn't say that."

Donovan licked again and then pushed his tongue as deep into Hunter as he could make it go, felt Hunter's muscles quiver and coil tight as he fought off the urge to rock back. Donovan gripped his thighs, holding Hunter as still as he could, working his tongue relentlessly against the vulnerable pink flesh until the sounds escaping Hunter's throat were more like sobs of pleasure than moans. He was open and wet, so easy for Donovan to push a finger inside and feel the muscles rippling, as if to pull him deeper. He was totally unprepared when Hunter rocked his hips forward hard against the rough cotton hotel sheets and came. Donovan drew his finger out and Hunter stretched out on the mattress, grimacing as he settled into the wet spot.

"I'm sorry...that wasn't very impressive, was it?"

Donovan kissed the back of Hunter's shoulder, looking up at his face which was reddened with a mixture of arousal and embarrassment, and thought for a moment how terribly young he was, and it hurt to think that maybe this would be the only time he was ever with someone, that he might spend the whole of the rest of his life searching for his sister. Donovan wouldn't put it past him - the kid had that sort of dark, obsessive streak in him.

"Don't worry about it," he promised, lips finding the tender flesh of Hunter's earlobe and sucking lightly. Beneath him Hunter shivered, sighed, and then turned over, taking Donovan's aching erection in one smooth hand, pushing against the wet crown with his thumb, dragging against the tender skin in a way that made Donovan hiss through his teeth.

He came with his forehead against Hunter's, those sharp green eyes locked with his own, entirely unreadable, beautiful, and just a little frightening.

***

That night, as he slept with an arm around Hunter's waist, inhaling the sweet smell of sweat, come and alcohol on Hunter's skin, Donovan had a strange dream - a dream about a bloody young man who looked like Hunter, meeting a young man who looked like and older version of his brother Gavin on a dark road in the rain. Gavin put his hands straight into Hunter's spilled guts and the skin knit up underneath his fingers and the rain washed all the blood away, washed everything away, until it really _was_ Donovan and Gavin, standing together in a crowded hallway, joking and laughing like old friends.

When he woke the next morning, the bed next to him was empty. He figured Hunter had gone home, or maybe to class. He hoped the kid wasn't too hung over. Drinking on a Thursday night maybe hadn't been the best plan ever.

The day was brilliantly sunny, warm except for a sharp wind blowing from the north. Donovan walked down the street with his hands shoved inside his jacket pockets, through an unusually large crowd of weekday shoppers. There must have been some big sale or something, because he was fairly sure he had never seen so many people in one place. Just as he was about to cross the street, to take a side street around to a diner he liked to visit sometimes for a cheap, hot meal before heading to the archives, when he spotted a little girl standing on the corner by a mailbox.

She stuck out impossibly - black and white striped leggings under a bright pink jumper-dress under a purple hand-knit jacket; the wild get-up finished with fur-lined boots and a rainbow coloured scarf. Her wickedly orange hair was done in a high ponytail and she wore a plastic tiara - definitely one of those _'I dressed myself today'_ outfits that only little kids could get away with. She stood with her head in her hands, absolutely in tears, and everyone else was walking past her as if she didn't even exist.

Donovan walked over and crouched in front of her, touching her arm gently. "Hey princess - you okay?"

She lifted her head and looked at him with enormous, cat-green eyes, almost the same shade as Hunter's, but gentler somehow, and wiped the tears from her pink cheeks.

"I can't find my brother."

Donovan's heart twisted so hard he actually had to take a moment to catch his breath before he could speak. "Your brother, huh? Was he here with you?"

The little girl nodded, "I let go of his hand because I wanted to look at the toys," she pointed to a nearby window display, where a department store already had its Christmas wares on inescapable display, "An' then I couldn't see him anymore. There's too many people."

"There _are_ a lot of people," Donovan nodded, looking around. He wondered just how someone could lose track of a girl so vibrantly dressed, but he guessed it was possible. "Why don't I help you find him? My name's Donovan."

He offered the girl a hand, and she took it, shaking it with an impressively powerful grip as she wiped her nose on her sleeve, "'m Laura."

"Alright Laura," Donovan straightened up, "you think if I lift you up on my shoulders you might be able to spot your brother?"

Laura's face broke into a positively joyful grin, "Sure! You're really tall - I bet it'll work!"

It was partially a ploy just to make the girl smile for a bit; but almost as soon as Donovan had lifted her up she was shouting, "I see him, I see him! Over here, Kenny!"

The young man that came towards them through the crowd wore a smart and very expensive-looking suit, and couldn't have looked more opposite of the little girl on Donovan's shoulders if he had deliberately tried. His face was set in a heavy scowl, but his bright lavender eyes betrayed his fear.

"Laura where have you been? You scared me half to death!"

"'m sorry Kenny," Donovan lifted Laura down and she clung reflexively to Donovan's pant leg, as if he might save her from her brother's ire. "I just wanted to see the dolls."

Laura's brother heaved a long-suffering sigh, "Well next time _tell me_ and we'll stop and look, alright?" He gave Donovan an apologetic look, "I'm so sorry about all this. She really can be a troublemaker."

"I cannot!" Laura piped up sharply, grabbing her brother's hand and tugging it ruthlessly, "Ken-ny!"

He ignored her with practiced grace, offering Donovan his other hand to shake, "Kenneth Gautreaux."

"Donovan Sheppard."

Kenneth smiled brightly, "Well Donovan - would you allow me to treat you to lunch, as thanks for helping my sister?"

Donovan should have said that he had some place to be, after all, it was true, but before he could open his mouth, Laura had him by the hand and was pulling him up the street, babbling excitedly about all the things she wanted to eat.

"Laura, would you slow _down_?" Kenneth jogged to keep up with them, his expression a mixture of annoyance and amusement.

Donovan couldn't help but laugh, "You've sure got your hands full with this one, Ken."

Kenneth rolled his eyes, "Tell me about it."

There would be time later, Donovan figured, to go back to the archives; as he was swept along by that wild whirlwind of a little girl, he felt suddenly confident that he had all the time in the world, and maybe both Gavin and Hunter would be alright without him for just a little while.

-End-


End file.
